Manufacturing And Cutting Costs Through Design Optimization

Material optimization is one method to keep costs low. If a material is harder to locate or its availability is rarer, this will make it more costly. If a lower cost alternative can be used, this needs to be investigated to keep costs of production at a minimum. Reviewing the process of manufacturing could find improvements and savings. If the manufacturing procedures are manual, savings could be gained if more automation were used. It may also be discovered that the manufacturing system was not accurately tested and too much waste is cultivated, resulting in much scrap, for example. Having too much scrap is a loss of profit where the material or metal could have been used to produce a product if testing were more precise as was the process of manufacturing. If a business decides to outsource some of its manufacturing to eliminate costs, one important consideration is in the quality of the product. If the products quality is lost due to the reduction in costs, this may not be as productive in cost savings as hoped.

Concurrent Engineering and Design for Manufacturability

Another way of saving on costs is through concurrent engineering. This is when a product is designed simultaneously as the process of manufacturing for the production of the product. Another way is design for manufacturability (DFM) where products are designed in a way to optimize all of the features of the manufacturing process such as testing, shipping, fabrication, ensuring the best costs and customer satisfaction. DFM advocates products to be manufactured with the least amount of parts and therefore cost reduction and less waste. Product design is conducted so that the product will be able to work with other parts and standardization is promoted.

Other Cost Saving Methods

Working alongside a vendor to help in the design of a product can aid in keeping costs low. They can help in preventing decision making such as producing a product unnecessarily fancier for aesthetic purposes. Vendors will comprehend the issues that face manufacturers and can help in giving solutions. This also provides a learning situation so that the manufacturer and vendor learn how to produce the jobs quicker and better each time.

Input has to be garnered from people in every department of the organization in order to cut costs. Talking to employees who actually do the jobs on the floor can yield ideas on how to make improvements to save money.

Understanding all problems that have happened in the past and learning from them so that they will not happen again in the future is important. Make sure designs are as simple as they can be so the assembly, fabrication and processing are simple. Any problems in fabrication, processing and assembly can end in enormous costs to fix. Follow guidelines for design processes. For example, there are certain procedures for operation of a laser cutter so follow them to the letter every time the laser cutter is operated. Do not design for right- and left-hand parts but produce a product that can be used either way so as not to end up with a huge amount of stock. Have a symmetrical product so it is simple to put together and avoids unnecessary complexity. Always manufacture a quality item. It is less costly to do it right the first time than to fix it later on.

Marc Anderes is the VP of Operations of Maloya Laser which specializes in Laser Cutting and Metal Manufacturing with advanced laser technologies, for medical, aerospace, scientific and transportation requirements.